SWARM: fly, fly my pretties

i read this and this and i've been thinking. in the janine benyuss book on biomimicry she mentions evolutionary software calculating stuff. they create a set of rules, and allow the code to mutate, selecting the best code they then repeat the process until they end up with the ultimate result, code which has evolved and been bred to do one thing. apparently there is, or was a site on the net that had computer art. every 20 minutes people voted on the mutation that made the most attractive pattern, and the one that won was allowed to mutate into other patterns while the others were killed off. i don't think computers will ever replace designers because codes like this one would tend to design for the average, not making the works that really knock us out. i guess it may mean less jobs for cad guys designing dustpans in china, but it doesn't worry me that much.

an open source approach to product design:
meaning everyone can contribute. one way this works that i have come up with is. imagine a hammer with a handle made of soft stone , that wears with use. if it were passed around among a group of people it would wear down to suit the size of their hands. that is an example, albeit poor, of evolutionary or open source design, everyone contributes.

emergent or swarm product design:
is described as if the equation 2+2 = 4 was changed to become 2+2 = apples. meaning basic connected sets of rules or actions result in a solution that is greater then the sum of its parts. if only i could work out how to apply this one it would be awesome. imagine group work where each person follows a set of guidelines to come up with a result that is combined with other results from other members to create something greater then even a combined person made up of all the seperate constituents could create. the example given is of ants who have little brains that work out difficult equations relating to placement of structures.

doing stuff? what!

doing stuff! what?
what? am i doing?. well initially i thought i would attempt to withhold my creativity. during the holidays i tend to have no one to show my work to, and therefore lack the desire to actually do stuff, for the same reason i've barely touched anything artistic since i finished year 12.

the idea was to be really creative, but not show anyone. to just work for myself. but i was pretty depressed when i came up with the idea, and now it seems silly and also extremely difficult. what would be the point of doing stuff if no one saw it?

stuff i have to do sometime during my free period
-actually sort out this exchange thing, otherwise i'll still be here in 6 months time, and everyone will be " i thought you were going overseas"
-make the jacket i bought fabric for about 4 weeks ago
-make some music for me to listen too
-draw some drawings
-work out this stuff about emergence and swarm design
-maybe get a extreme downhill gravity racing league going
-maybe make some tshirts
-make an awesomw folio that blows these netherlands guys out of the water!!1!1!2!3!4%5YAY

arghhh

holidays have almost started. i've just got to go into uni on monday to drop pff a little 500 word essay saying i actually did work during the studio, and then i'm done. i don't think i like holidays much. i think i get a bit to involved in uni. people ask me what i do for a hobby, and i find it hard to answer. do i have interests? or is it that they are not interesting to other people?

i also discovered recently i am a music slut. as interesting as that sounds it merely means that i mould my taste in music to fit in with the people around me. i have a pretty varied taste. mostly i listen to sort of indie stuff, and anything with girl singers, for some reason i find pretty good. but recently at work a gothic collegue asked me what sort of music i liked. i looked at her, weighed her up and said, " the old stuff, you know, hendrix, led zeppelin. etc" while it is true that i like this stuff it is not characteristic of my general taste. but she was like " wow, you've got really good taste in music for someone your age" and now i kind of wallow in this fake pool of brotherhood with her because we are " taking a stand", or something.

movies i saw

for you Loc, if you see this, the movies i watched relating to this project were

Mad Max 2 and 3
2 fast 2 furious
the Take (Naomi Kleine)
Howls Moving castle
The Proposition
Dawn of the Dead

and my soundtrack of choice for the reading is the MC5's 'Thunder Express" about a car, because they were pretty political and also their full name is The Motor City 5 because they came from Detroit, home of the US auto industry

more FAT to chew

FAT do cool stuff and i thought i'd put up some pics of some nice things i found, like their cynical customer roccoco carpark, for making parking more fun, and their solutions for overcrowding in cities, building quaint skyscrapers in the countryside, strangely reminiscent of a clock tower you may have seen

subversive MX,,, wipe your ass on that

this i think is the most great thing i have got out of /kates playgroup. the idea arose from the issues surrounding the free mx newspapers. the difficulty of reading them because they are so large, the waste of paper because people do not recycle them, just throw them in the bin, or on the ground if the bin is full. the newspaper is put in a toilet paper format so that it is easy to read, and you can go home and recycle it in any way you choose, including the obvious, which is really all that MX is good for.

it is one of those things it would be interesting to do an analysis of, weighing up the social benefits (or costs) versus the environmental costs

studies assignment

or, can you fit 3700 words in the comment section?

car door proves flaws in studies essay

i handed up my studies essay on friday, happy to get that done, promoting sustainable transport like cycling. saturday night... i rode into a car door inconveniently opened in my desired path, resulting in me deviating from said path in a graceful downward motion. i bit the dust, my favourite belt is grazed. i have a bruise the side of a fried egg on my thigh, but alive, and studies remains valid.

polyphasic sleep

polyphasic sleep is my hot tip of the week. running out of time for cad and studies? start the process now and by next week you'll be down to 2-3 hours of relaxing REM a day, in time for spending 12 hours a day in the lab. in the meantime as youre working on studies, be prepared for some fey and hallucinegenic days, as you write rambling essays about the reasons behind the universe, and why sustainability willl save us all, due to there being more time for frollicking and gambolling through beds of roses and clouds.